Friday, January 27, 2012

Take 2 – Community Meeting on the Future of 35th Ave NE on Wed, Feb. 8th at Congregation Beth Shalom


(This originally was posted on the Wedgwood Community Council's website) 

Community Meeting -
The Future of 35th Ave NE

Wednesday, February 8th from 7-8:30PM at the Congregation Beth Shalom sanctuary (6800 35th Ave NE)
On January 11th, the Wedgwood Community Council discussed plans to develop neighborhood planning tools for 35th Ave NE as a community, amongst other topics, at theWCC’s January General Meeting. The process would shape the future of 35th Ave NE to achieve the share vision developed by the community.  The baseline for Wedgwood’s vision was defined in 2010 with the completion of the Vision Plan.  However, this vision does not necessarily extend south of NE 75th Street, where the Ravenna-Bryant community may have a slightly different vision.
A second meeting will be held at in the sanctuary of Congregation Beth Shalom (across from the NE Branch Library) on Wednesday, February 8th, to describe the process the Wedgwood community is going to undertake. Hopefully, the Ravenna-Bryant community will partner alongside us to their vision incorporated into more unified and cohesive neighborhood planning tools for 35th Ave NE.  We will have a brief presentation to describe the process and time line before opening the meeting up to Q&A.
Please help us spread the word to your friends and neighbors so that we can make sure the community is aware of their chance to come out and participate in shaping the future of 35th Ave NE.
Photo is of 35th Ave NE and NE 75th Street of the Safeway property circa 1947 (the tall trees are where the Safeway sign is today).  Photo courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archive’s Photo Collection.

Friday, January 13, 2012

The Future of 35th Ave NE, A Community’s Decision


(This originally was posted on the Wedgwood Community Council's website) 
(Photo at left is looking north along 35th Ave NE at what would become the Post Office [foreground] and Hunter Farm [background] site in 1957, courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection)
This past Wednesday, the WCC held its first general meeting of the year with about 50 people in attendance from Wedgwood, View Ridge, Matthews Beach, and Ravenna-Bryant.  The meeting kicked off with a presentation by CleanScapes on the Neighborhood Waste Reduction Rewards program and $50,000 that the Tuesday North collection service area has to work with for a community project.  We also provided a few details on the $13,000 Small and Simple grant the WCC received to work with other NE Seattle community groups on community emergency preparedness.  However, the meetings agenda largely focused on the future of 35th Ave NE and how we as a community will be developing a “neighborhood plan” over the next year or so.
Per Johnson and Mary Beth O’Neill with the Wedgwood Land Use Committee presented has been doing over the past year to identify suitable land use tools and a potential process for creating our “neighborhood plan.”  Details on the proposed plan and process can be found on the 35th Ave NE Neighborhood Plan page, which has been linked to through the Land Use Committee page.  In general though, the WLUC is beginning a process to recruit a steering committee of community members to craft land use planning tools that will comprise our “neighborhood plan.”  We will coordinate Community Learning Seminars to educate anyone interested in land use concepts and topics found in the Vision Plan, such as “how to make a neighborhood walkable” or “how to create a diverse and thriving business district.”  These Community Learning Seminars will be presented by experts in the field so that we, as a community, will be able to discuss through Public Workshops what shared goals our community want. We hope to present our draft “neighborhood plan” in January 2013 to the community for comments and have the WCC vote on the final plan in April 2013.  If all goes to plan, we will be submitting our “neighborhood plan” by mid-May 2013.
If you have questions or would like to join the volunteer steering committee, please email » the WLUC.
Here is a video of the meeting. The audio is a little quiet and it’s a rather long video. To make it easier for you to see/listen to what you want, the presentation by CleanScapes begins at 0:46, an announcement on the $13,000 that the WCC has received to work on emergency preparedness begins at 8:13, the 35th Ave NE Neighborhood Plan presentation begins at 14:14, and Q&A begins at 50:07.